Transcript: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Mitt Romney

June 14, 2009

Page 13 of 16

But let's move on to the Iranian elections over the weekend. We've
seen protests in the streets for the last couple of days, after these
elections, you know. What we can't tell is exactly how rigged the
elections were. Ahmadinejad wound up with more than 60 percent of the
vote, despite the fact that his lead opponent, Hossein Mousavi, was --
had a lot of support in the streets just before the elections.

So setting that question aside, which is hard for us to know, how
big a crisis is this for the Iranian regime?

WILL: Hard to say. Ferdinand Marcos held an election improvidently
in 1986. And four days later, he was gone because it was widely
considered rigged.

The difference is that the Catholic Church in the Philippines said
it was rigged, and there was an enormous moral authority there.

Ahmadinejad is such a repellant figure, part Zedong, part Joseph
Goebbels. And he has a clear base in the country. So the fact that we
can't tell this was rigged or not is a disaster for the Obama
administration, because you can hardly engage this man now when his
legitimacy, such as it ever was, seems much diminished.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know what's weird, George, to see them call the
election before all the votes had been counted. And at one vote, they
said he won an overwhelming mandate, you know, less than 20 percent of
the ballots coming in.

I think democracy has been unleashed. And regardless of what
happens going forward in Iran, there is now a new democracy movement.

And you notice that during the middle of the campaign, they'd turn
off the computers. They shut down Twitter and Facebook, the main tools
used by the opposition to try to unseat the president. Now that the
supreme leader has basically said that the president won re-election, I
don't know if there's going to be a recount.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mousavi this morning has now filed an official
appeal. And the election is not official until the guardian of elders,
all of them on the set, come out and certify. The administration (ph)
of Iran is waiting for that to happen before they make their plea for
reengagement.

And I guess this is -- picking up on George's point, going forward,
the administration was ready to deal with Ahmadinejad before. Should
they continue that policy of engagement? Or should there be a
rethinking in order to resolve it?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, whether or not there should be, they are -- they
are certainly keeping -- as they made clear yesterday, they are
committed to moving forward. And we'll deal with Iran as the way it is,
basically.

But there's no doubt, it makes it more -- much more complicated. If
you did a ledger on this from the U.S. point of view, I think you would
say that this election has clearly shown that that there is a
substantial constituency with Iran for reform within and perhaps a
different relationship with the outside world.

But it also shows you, perhaps even more clearly, that those who
have their hands on the lever of power are not going to concede very
much to that constituency. And those two forces are going to be in
tension and in play. And clearly, the U.S. goal has got to be to speak
to the first and strengthen it. And hopefully, that provide the
leverage on those who are now and remain in power.

STEPHANOPOULOS: There has been no change in power, because
Ayatollah Khameini is the supreme leader, will be the supreme leader.
He calls the shots on U.S. policy.